The A303

Synopsis

Some roads take us from A to B. Others take us on a journey. Others tell a story. The A303 is a one of the essential routes of English motoring. It is a byword for traffic-jam misery; yet at the same time it holds out a promise: to take the traveller west, to a world of entrancement and escape. In the A303, Highway to the Sun, Tom Fort takes a journey back thousands of years across an ever-changing English landscape. He meditates on the road's ancient origins, when bluestones were conveyed along its route to build Stonehenge, and on the Roman roads and drovers' paths that lie beneath it. He explores the rich and diverse terrain around it, the wide spaces of Salisbury Plain, the steep valleys of Somerset, the streams it crosses, the ancient woods that look down on it. And he gives voice to the stories that the road has to tell: of solstice seekers and Stonehenge; of Queen Guinevere and Sir Launcelot; of army camps and Druid rites; stagecoaches and motorcars; transport visionaries and batty clergymen; truckers' tea stops, and ancient inns; battles, festivals, punch-ups; of churches, farms and burial mounds. Digging in dark corners, peering into dusty corners. exploring long-forgotten byways and poring over ancient maps, Tom Fort has created a story of exploration, and of social and cultural history, as alive to the England of 3000 BC as the England of 2012 AD. Tom Fort was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1978 he joined the BBC in London where he worked in the BBC Radio newsroom for 22 years. He lives in South Oxfordshire with his wife and two of his children and has been travelling up and down the A303 for over five decades.

Copyright:

2012

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9780857203274

Publisher:

Simon & Schuster

Date of Addition:

04/26/12

Copyrighted By:

Tom Fort

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Travel

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.